The Elogium of Romulus

The Elogium of Romulus
“Romulus, son of Mars, founded the city Rome and ruled for 38 years. He was the first leader to dedicate the spolia opima to Jupiter Feretrius, having killed the general of the enemy, Acro king of the Caeninenses, and having been received in the number of the gods, was called Quirinus.”

This inscription, which would have been underneath a statue of Romulus, was found in the building of Eumachia in the forum of Pompeii. This reproduction is in the Museo della Civilta Romana in Rome.

(original photo by me)

Suovetaurilia

A relief from Rome’s Museo della Civilta Romana, showing a Roman ritual known as a suovetaurilia: the sacrifice of a pig (sus), sheep (ovis) and a bull (taurus).

(original photo by me)

Theater Mask

(original photo by me)

Rinse The Blood Off My Toga

Rinse The Blood Off My Toga is Wayne and Shuster’s classic parody of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar by way of Dragnet.

You can listen to (and download) the original 13 minute version from 1959 at this archive.org page.

And here’s an 8 minute version, produced for television sometime in the 1970s (if I’m not mistaken).

Classical Culture for Vulgar Times

An old magazine cover that I made in 2005.

Horace

A statue of Horace in his hometown of Venosa, Italy. Don’t miss the use of fasces as fence posts.

(original photo by me)

N Popidius Celsinus and the Temple of Isis

N Popidius N f. Celsinus
aedem Isidis terrae motu conlapsam
a fundamento p(ecunia) s(ua) restituit hunc decuriones ob liberalitatem
cum esset annorum sexs ordini suo gratis adlegerunt.

“Numerius Popidius Celsinus, son of Numerius, restored the Temple of Isis with his own money from the ground up after it had been destroyed by an earthquake. Because of his generosity, the town councilors (decuriones) enrolled him into their membership without charge when he was only six years old.”

Notice that the number six, normally spelled “sex” in Latin, is here spelled “sexs”.

In the book Pompeii: The Living City by Alex Butterworth & Ray Laurence, the authors suggest that this Numerius Popidius Celsinus is the same person commemorated by an inscription found in Spain: “To the shades of Numerius Popidius Celsinus, decurion, well-deserving. Quintus Cecilius his son set this up”. If so, then this is a rare example, possibly the only example, of someone from Pompeii who definitely survived the eruption of Vesuvius. The earthquake that destroyed the temple was in 62 CE and Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. Since Popidius Celsinus was 6 when he fixed the temple, he couldn’t have been much older than 23 at the eruption.

(original photo by me)